RSCC Occupational Therapy Assistant Program

We all need balance - and we will really need it next semester! This has some good perspective.

While browsing through Facebook, this video popped up on my newsfeed. We talked a lot about the emotional side effects of burns and the long process of skin transplants. This firefighter was given a new face with functional eyelids. How incredible that surgeons were able to do this for him. It makes me optimistic for future burn victims.

This is another video about the firefighter that I just posted. It is pretty similar but I like this one better because it is a little more detailed and you get to hear from the burn survivor. It also lets you know how he is recovering.

I hope I'm not the only one freaking out about job hunting in the future. I found this article that will help prepare us for job interviews with some sample questions. It is always good to be prepared.

This post comes from the same OT based blog from my last diigo posting, but with all of this resume/cover letter/job talk and coming up in the very near future, I wanted to share this post as well! It is very helpful. It goes into types of questions we may encounter in a job interview and how you should go about answering them! Very helpful info to add to our portfolio of info!

Lots of people have a workout schedule, but this article has a nice daily schedule for people with autism. With this schedule they will get to work on something different every day with breaks added in.

I am sure all of us have already designed our adaptive devices, but this journal has a few cool ideas that we could share with future patients. These are things found around the house that can be easily adaptable.

Some cheap and easy adaptive ideas for clients in the home environment. I may even use some myself!

Nobody wants to focus on handwriting. hand strength is a common problem in OT pediatrics so here are some ways to make it fun. It can be done in therapy or shared with parents for fun at home. They are also organized into categories.

Parents are known to ask a lot of questions about their children. This one I wouldn't be able to answer until I read this article. This wil tell ou when it is a problem and how parents or therapists can address it.

The title explains it pretty well, but it has been a while since we went over strokes. This article gives you a few tips to help stroke victims gain ROM.

I've heard a lot about the OT tool box, but this mom has made her own tool kit with over 50 items. They are all meant for children, but some can be used for adults. Bonus, a lot of this stuff can be made at home or bought for cheap at Walmart.

I admit I found this on Pintrest, but I love this idea. If the child is advanced, they could even help put the maze together. The raised edges are a better cue than just drawn lines as well.

I'm not sure what population would benefit most from this, maybe children with fine motor problems? It is a faster way to tie your shoes, with less steps.

This shows you how to make a sensory book. Each page has a different texture. This could be used in so many ways, whether sensory seeking or sensory avoiding. If needed you could even add pictures that fit each page.

I know this says it is or physical therapy, but a few of these activities could definitely work for OT. Especially "finger twister", it would help ROM so much. There are other activities for fine motor skills as well.

I am finding myself more interested in cardiopulmonary care as my grandma was in the hospital over 5 weeks and received NO occupational therapy. I think it would be beneficial to spread awareness that this is in fact within our scope of practice. This is a brief description of how OT can be involved as part of a treatment team within a hospital. It is just one example of how and who all is involved in care of cardiac/lung patients at a hospital.

I don't know about the rest of you but I have trouble coming up with fun and purposeful activities for older adults. I came across this webpage that has ideas on activities for dressing, activities for cancer patients, arthritis patients, stroke victims, and more. Some of the "toolkit" you have to pay for but a lot of the handouts for home exercises are free and fairly simply to understand. I feel like there is something for almost every topic we have talked about his semester.

I don't know if anyone follows blogs, but I came across this and wanted to share! I have found blogs to be very helpful and this one especially because this particular post on this blog refers to other blogs that have all kinds of good info pertaining to OT. If you have time save it or check it out! Blogs are awesome! ;)

This is such a good story, not at all what I expected when I started to read. I feel like this relates to us, and is an issue our clients will face and I don't want to give away the ending. It is not long at all but it is about a lady who parks in a handicap spot and comes out to find a note on her car...

This article from the today shows website talks about the CP foundations campaign of "just say hi". It addresses the fact that people with disability do not require any other treatment than people who do not. The first step .. just say hi, I feel like this is such a huge topic and I am very interested in backing this campaign. I hope you all find it as interesting as me!

That is a really great campaign! I think most people have issues with greeting people with disabilities and initiating small talk. In one of my linguistics classes, there was a blind student. None of the other students really talked to him, either because they did not know how to or simply because they did not care (unfortunately). I later read an article about blind students at my university, in which he was interviewed. He said that other students were reserved and were not really ready to interact with blind students. That is really sad. Therefore, campaigns like "just say hi' are very important!

I wanted to share this activity I came across. I was actually looking for something like this for an activity for one of our projects last semester but never found one I liked well enough so I just made it up. This is a lot like what I made for the activity, I wanted to make an activity pertaining to putting because my grandfather loved to play golf and is now unable and I thought that would be something neat he would enjoy and relate to in treatment. I wanted to share because I feel like this will be a good activity to have if you are working with someone like my grandfather who played golf everyday of his life for over 30 years. :)